Hurdles await Virginia candidates' education proposals

Major challenges stand in the way of the education plans of both Ken Cuccinelli and Terry McAuliffe, the leading candidates for governor.

And when it comes to one of the biggest parts of state government, both candidates' plans contain big question marks.

McAuliffe, the former national Democratic Party chair, wants to boost teacher pay and reverse past cuts to education. He would do so, he says, by tapping money freed up if the state expands access to its Medicaid program and receives federal money as a result through the Affordable Care Act.

"We're going to look at the efficiencies we can bring to the government," McAuliffe said at a Wednesday debate in Northern Virginia. "And then we're going to work together to get that Medicaid expansion."

Whether the General Assembly would go along with such an expansion is an open question, as is exactly how much money McAuliffe would be able to tap for public education.

McAuliffe has not said how much money he wants to invest in the education reforms he's seeking.

Cuccinelli wants to change the state's constitution to make it easier to form charter schools — independently operated schools that receive public funds.

Currently applicants hoping to found a charter must get the go-ahead from the local school board in whose district they seek to operate.

"It's like Pepsi having to get permission from the board of directors of Coca-Cola to sell a new product," Cuccinelli's campaign says in its K-12 education plan. "Virginia has one of the most useless charter school laws in the country."

Don Soifer, a charter school advocate at the right-leaning Lexington Institute in Northern Virginia, said Cuccinelli's plan on charters is the "boldest" he's seen from any statewide candidate.

But, Soifer said, it will be very hard to pull off. Changing the state's constitution requires an amendment to be passed by the legislature twice, with an election in between the votes, and then approved by voters in a statewide referendum.

"McAuliffe's plan is more ambitious on the surface because it requires action of the General Assembly, and of the Republican-controlled House, which would be an uphill climb," said Christopher Newport University political scientist Quentin Kidd, referring to a yes vote on Medicaid expansion.

And even if McAuliffe is able to work with lawmakers to get that bill passed, his plan "makes assumptions about how much money it would produce that there's disagreement on," Kidd said.

"Conservative economists say it wouldn't produce as much money and could eventually cost the state money, so there's a wide assumption range," he added.

But Kidd said shifting public money to charters in Virginia is similarly ambitious.

It's a concept also backed by Libertarian nominee Robert Sarvis.

On his website Sarvis says he supports "a universal system of school vouchers and/or tax credits" and expansion of charter schools in the state.

Though the notion of choosing where a child can be educated is not controversial, the idea that state tax dollars should follow that student can be polarizing.

The concept divided the lieutenant governor hopefuls, state Sen. Ralph Northam, D-Norfolk, and Chesapeake minister and Republican E.W. Jackson at a debate last week.

Asked if families of home-schooled children should receive state tax dollars, Jackson, whose wife teaches in public schools, said they should.

"If the focus of education is the children, not the protection of the system, but the children, it seems to me that parents who choose to home-school their children should be given every opportuntiy to share in the resources that it takes to educate those kids," he said.

Northam responded that such a change would hinder the mission of public schoools and added, "Anything we do that pulls money from the public schools system is something I'd never support."

"Your plan, Mr. Jackson, to have money from our public education system follow home-schoolers — you're looking at about $110 million a year," Northam said. "It means the loss of 1,700 teachers in the commonwealth of Virginia."

Local control

Another issue facing statewide candidates is a new board created by the General Assembly to transform underperforming schools.

The Opportunity Educational Institute, whose first members have not all been selected, was minted by lawmakers with the mission of taking over the management of failing schools.

Gov. Bob McDonnell, who proposed the takeover system, stood in front of a Norfolk school where test scores have lagged year after year in late August, noting that his administration would start to ready the school and three others to go under state control.

Under state management a charter or contract school, like the Achievable Dream Academy, could be brought in to teach students.

Four schools were chosen for takeover in the first year of the program because they'd failed to get state accreditation three years running.